As the snow melts and April rains make way for May flowers, encourage your training clients and class participants to supplement structured exercise with outdoor activities. Here, courtesy of The Cooper Institute, is a list of common springtime endeavors, along with their calorie expenditures in a 30-minute period:

First Lady Michelle Obama wants to change
the way U.S. children eat and play. Disturbed by childhood obesity rates, she has enlisted the help of the White House to launch the Let’s Move campaign. According to a press release, she has gathered support from people in government, medicine, science, business, education and athletics to overcome the childhood overweight/obesity problem. For example, several school lunch suppliers have agreed to
reduce the fat, sugar and salt content of their meals over the next
5 years.

A popular myth is that there is a specific range of heart rates in which you must exercise to burn fat. Even many cardio machines display a “fat-burning zone” on their panels, encouraging people to exercise in a specific heart rate range. Have you ever wondered if you really have to exercise in a specific heart rate zone to lose fat? And what happens if you venture out of that zone? Jason R.

Why can some teens lose weight and keep it off, while
others try and try again, to no avail? According to a recent study, teenagers who do lose weight appear to share certain characteristics that contribute to their success.
The cross-sectional study, published in the December 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, showed that adolescents who lose weight are more likely to report using the following “healthful weight
control behaviors”:

Weight loss can be tricky. You see clients day after day, working their hearts out without achieving any significant results. You know that their exercise program is making them stronger and healthier, but they are disappointed to see no change when they weigh themselves.
If your clients are exercising and adhering to a lean and healthy diet, one thing you might want to ask them about is the timing and frequency of their daily meals. While what we eat is the most crucial component in any healthy food plan, proper meal timing is also something to consider.

Weekly phone calls from a lifestyle coach helped inactive, obese middle-aged men and women achieve weight loss goals over a 12-week period, according to a pilot study published in Patient Education and Counseling (2009; Nov. 10). Researchers from the Veterans Affairs [VA] Ann Arbor Healthcare System in Michigan wanted to determine whether a phone-based program of self-management for weight loss would be feasible to deliver and would help participants achieve clinically significant weight loss.

Today, two out of three American adults are overweight or obese, and another 5.9% are now considered extremely obese (body mass index ≥ 40) (CDC). Excess weight increases the risk for heart disease, stroke, diabetes, several cancers, gallbladder disease and more. To fight the extra weight, Americans spend billions of dollars a year on diets and products promising weight loss, only to fail along the way. Considering these facts, it’s not surprising that clients approach you with questions about how to shed pounds fast.

Visceral fat is considered the most dangerous type of fat, as it tends to surround vital organs. Individuals with higher amounts of visceral fat are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes and heart disease. According to researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, regular exercise can keep visceral fat at bay. The 97 participants were randomly assigned to three groups: aerobic training, resistance training or no exercise. They were also placed on an 800-calorie-a-day diet and lost an average of 24 pounds.

Clients always want to know how many
calories they are burning while exercising. Now they can use their smart phone or PDA to count calories instantly while jogging along a path or changing ends between tennis games.